This week, our group continued tirelessly to finish another and one of the most important phase of our public seating space. Once the tires were completely cut and washed thoroughly of dirt and water, we sprayed all of the tires with three separate supplies. We began with a black rustproof base coat, a special coloured overcoat, and finally, the gloss paint that will seal everything together and keep the paint onto the tire permanently.

At the same time, the group is busy preparing the lagacy report and is looking for more ways of implementation of used tires in everyday life.

With the final days nearing, this weekend will be spent on assembling the tires to form the seats using a drill and bolts, and finishing the planters with soil and plants. Soon enough, everything will be ready for our upcoming exhibition at Civic Space this month!

After an unsuccessful first attempt at cutting the tires, the gang rolled up their sleeves, and armed with new material, got to it once again.

We rented a bolt cutter and a sawzall from the Lebel building, and began hacking away once again. At the suggestion of a Masters student, who was hanging around the Lebel building during our work, we fastened the tires as shown in the picture so that it is easier and safer to cut right down the middle. It was a very slow process getting through all of the metal bits embedded in the tire, but we managed to cut at least two full tires.

Later in the week, a few of us met Rod to discuss further options to make the cutting process faster. He showed us how to use the bench saw to cut the tires quickly and smoothly, as the blade is much thicker and runs on a powerful machine.

This upcoming weekend will hold a lot of importance as we test out the correct painting supplies and sealers.

This week proved to be the toughest but most important week yet. It was our midterm presentation week where we had to present our project to the rest of the class. Also, we had to give a brief idea of what our project is about and provide a future outlook on what is to be expected . While we presented we received much feedback, some good, however others questioned a few of the ideas we presented. But out of all the feedback and advice we received it was obvious that one issue was brought up several times. The aesthetics of the actual design was our key issue. So our next objective is to begin designing. We had already accomplished and researched ideas that would help begin the first stage of process.

There are a few things that have to be updated before we get our hands dirty. The group will update its task schedule and proposal update in order to keep the project in check after certain setbacks. The proposal update covers a small but significant portion to redirect the changes we have set. These need to be done by the beginning of next week.

Looking ahead, our team has a lot to accomplish if we wish to complete this project by the end of the semester. We feel this project has huge potential in reviving our alleyways. We hope to share more next week on what has been completed. See you next time!

We found this chair to be closely related to our model which will help us to build ours.

Our group spent the better part of this week preparing for our midterm presentation. With our final sketches ready, all we need to do is to play with the materials to implement the physical model. We were able to find 25 free used tires of different shapes and sizes, and will be using different tools borrowed from the Lebel Sculpture space, setting up shop there for a few days to continue our progress.

We are thinking of installing this kind of table with the chairs shown at the top.

This weekend will be make or break in our realizations for our chosen material! We’ve taken out a few different tools, depending on how difficult the tires will be to cut will be the deciding factor in our final outcome to be displayed in the course’s gallery show at Civic Space.

Our preliminary plans for the vacant lot (photoshop): Recycled tires made into planters and suspended from each wall. On the right, our second idea- two stacks of tire planters placed in the middle of the lot. This will be added, along with a seating area for passersby.

This week the team had two group meetings outside the class hours to decide on the final design and the materials required for Public Seating Space and Decoration. Much of the work was focused on reworking our original concept for Sidewalk Furniture Design.

We continued to explore the downtown area to look for a suitable place where we can implement our plan. While doing so, we came across a vacant lot between two buildings, which looked odd in the middle of the downtown area. We thought of decorating it as shown in the photoshoped picture above. We are in the process of contacting the owner of the vacant lot, so that we can implement our idea and have a ‘test run’.

Last week, we had a critical evaluation of the current chairs in the sidewalk. After noticing the uncomfortableness and the one way seating of the benches on Oulette, we knew we wanted ours to be round, so that the passerby can sit and view things from any angle they please. Keeping these points in mind, we did some research on the internet. We came up with few ideas and drew some sketches based on the criteria we had. A multifunctional seating space was in mind so ideas of adding a solar powered charging station for cell phones were also talked about.

Sketches of our ideas, slowly evolving.

After much deliberation and realizations, we concluded that our idea for our seating space needed to be simplified: using too many different materials would be expensive and inefficient. Using recyclable material, such as car tires, would be easy to find and manipulate into what we were making. We need to experiment more with our selected material to create our design for the seating space.

More sketches: A circular seating space, with a planter of flowers in the middle. Coming close to a final design!

Welcome Back!
Team Windsor revivers here with more good news this week! At the beginning of this week we had the pleasure of welcoming in a new team member to our group. His name is Aftad Ahmed, a 4th year student in Liberal Arts. We are happy to include him and are excited about what he has to offer in support to our project.

This week has been rather productive for us! We have recently ordered the silicon wristbands we were contemplating last week, as well as submitted our survey for review and approval. The bracelets will be available for distribution by next week. These wristbands will be given as gifts as a thank you to the public who participate in our surveys and on spot interviews. Our group members have been working on making the contacts we will need for larger advertisements. As well, we have finalized some of our smaller campaign ideas that will begin making their appearance next week. We now have a QR code available for our Facebook page and will be making posters that will feature this. The QR code makes access to our Facebook page available on smart phones with a click of a button!

Our main source for feedback, so far, is our Facebook page. At the time of writing this, we have 62 likes and counting.
We were very pleased to see a steady climb in the people reached all week. We began this week at 25 likes so we are gaining more and more support as we go. There have been many comments on the pictures we have and we have been working tirelessly to keep improving the page. The amount of feedback so far has been enough to start the comparative analysis as planned.
Salman will be gaining the assistance of Aftad in this regard and they will be working on it Saturday this week. Mandy and Khaldoun will be responsible for a big portion of the advertising campaign by finding and inviting key and influential people in the community to our Facebook page over the weekend. This is an intrigal part of our project in an attempt to further our audience and gain support for our cause. Simon has been working individually on his city research portion. So far he is comparing other successful cities with Windsor in order to bring new ideas to the table and lend either support to or debunk possibilities for implementation. Things are running smoothly and our members are working together at every step to insure that all aspects of this project are being maintained.

Statics shows that Canada was ranked second last for energy efficiency. The examination was done by a non-profit organization called the American Council Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). In recent months, Windsor has suffered an increase in criminal harassment and assaults in the Downtown area. This is largely due to poorly lit areas where suspects tend to lurk. This discovery motivated our group to produce solar technology of traffic and street lights which can improve the safety and security of the public.

In addition, this inventive tool will help Windsor conserve and reduce energy consumption, as well as, costs. However, there is still a lot of research that must be done. Including, using a computer software that will produce 3D graphics of how this technology may look like and how it would work. This idea is currently being processed and evaluated for additional modifications to better the performance and outlook of this solar technology. If everything goes as planned, we will see a new ‘hip’ design of traffic and street lights that downtown Windsor has ever seen!

“Stay tuned to this page for more information and updates on our designs.”

Today’s class critique brought some discussion within the group about how we can develop our ideas and take them further. A few days ago, we congregated downtown and examined how the current street furniture (benches, bus stops, etc) was being used/not used by passersby. We also took note of the materials used; for example, benches and seats are made of metal, which can be cleaned easily but could heat up in the summer and be too cold to sit on in the winter.

An idea was mentioned of implementing a foldable seat to a lamp post, which would not only save room on the sidewalk, but it would be multi-functional. While researching on the web, we found a closely related project by Jerusalem-based designer Adi Kalina, who created a seating area with an overhead light, used for the outdoors (photo above).

Upon completing our online research for the day, we agreed upon a few things to keep in mind while we narrow our final idea: It should be aesthetically pleasing, eco-friendly, cost- friendly, space saving, and possibly multi-functional.

A group consisting of five members: Mohammad Tasfique Rahman (Rafi), Sehrish Kamal, Rosina Riccardo, Sajid Ehsan and Portia Crosswell has been formed to create an innovative product for the downtown area (city of Windsor). Our goal is to come up with a plan for a green technology/product that can be implemented in the downtown area. We have decided to keep an open mind and work constructively together in order to develop the most ideal green-product for our project called Sidewalk Furniture Design.

The group made a brief tour in the downtown street to look around at the current setting of the area. After careful evaluation, we have decided to work on the sidewalk furniture set up at the downtown street. Although we are still in the thinking process of coming up with a concrete feasible plan, we have already made a number of plans to work on in order to reach our goal. Some of our plans include a recreation of the current areas’ bus stops, as well as to implement some “tuck away” furniture that could be placed around Windsor’s downtown. Below is the list of things we thought about working on:

Green Corridor 2012, is an experience like no other.. since day one we have been thrown into the creative process, and told to think “outside of the box.”

Our team consists of four members, Syed Raza, a business student, Kate Stasiak, an environmental studies student specializing in resource management, Rachel Bondy, an environmental studies student specializing in policy and values, and Caleigh Arthur, a visual arts student. Together, as an interdisciplinary team, we will work to change Windsor’s downtown center.

As we began to narrow down what our area of interest would be for the project, we decided it would be best to each write down one word that symbolized a downtown sector. The themes of recycling, businesses, cafes, and community, were brought forward.

The mind map above, is a replica of the one our group created. The initial four ideals branched off in many directions.

Ultimately, we decided that the main issue with the downtown city center, was that it is not considered a gathering place for the community as much of this attention had been focused on the waterfront area. We want to do a project that will not only increase the foot traffic in the area, which in turn helps business, but, also create a fun environment that depicts a greener metropolitan area.